Do Bad Reviews Kill Companies?

- Okay, I review a lot of products, right? I've talked about hundreds, maybe thousands of products at this point, but for as many videos I've made about products, there are many more products in the world. So the process of selecting which products to review first is like an art form in itself. Most products are just, well, okay. As if they existed, were made, were good, whatever. Therefore, they have to reach a certain level of interest or be really good to even be considered for a review, or sometimes really, really bad. There have been a lot of interesting debates on this topic lately.

There will be, you know, some negative

reviews

, and then a company will eventually go out of business. And then the Internet begs the question: "Do bad

reviews

kill

businesses?" Do bad reviews

kill

companies

? Or do bad products kill

companies

? Yes, I have many ideas. So two of the biggest examples that have been pointed out, especially on Twitter, were the Fisker Ocean review I did and the Humane AI Pin from a couple of days ago. So the Fisker saga was pretty well documented, but in case you missed it, I reviewed a car, had a pretty horrible experience with it, documented it, posted the review on the Auto Focus channel, and then a few months later , the entire company seems to be on life support, and will probably declare bankruptcy soon.

And now this startup, Humane, you know, launched its first product, this pin. I review it, it's not super positive. A lot of people say the same thing, and by the way, I don't even think Humane is going anywhere. But I think there's a pretty simple logic we can use to figure out what the real danger is for these companies, which is, do you still get a bunch of bad reviews and then you die as a company if the product is really good? But you know what? Let's back up a second. What is a review? One small thing that bothers me is that I think people misuse or overuse that word, but a review is just someone using the product and then just giving their impressions of whether they think it's good or not, and how well it actually worked.

And if your honest opinion is that it's good, then that's the review. If it's bad, that's the review. Basically that's it. That's why I've been an advocate for good independent reviews for what seems like forever. But the thing about reviews is that if they're not honest, they're basically useless. I really feel strongly that everything that comes from a review, all the consequences and everything that surrounds it, everything in the world and the review ecosystem depends on the review being truthful and really honest about things. So, I'll just give you an example. I've told this story before, but I remember years ago reviewing the first Razer Phone when it came out.

Razer, the gaming company, makes a lot of things. They were delving into smartphones for the first time. So they created a phone that appeals to the same target demographic of gamers. So, you know, it had a lot of advantages and disadvantages. Obviously gaming-focused features, so it has front-facing speakers and a high refresh rate. The battery is quite large, but the camera was also weak. And specifically, I remember, the vibration motor was horrible. And I remember saying it. I remember saying this. Also the vibration motor on this phone, garbage. Pure garbage. I'm going to call myself so you can hear this. (phone ringing and vibrating) (phone ringing and vibrating) It sounds broken, but it sounded like that from day one.

That's the Razer phone. One of the worst vibration motors I've ever experienced on a new phone. So, okay, fast forward a year, right? I'm at a briefing, it's in New York City, it's for the Razer Phone 2. And they're walking me and other people through this new phone that they've created, and they have a ton of changes. . It has a shiny back. They added wireless charging now. The logo shines and it seems like the speakers are better and all that, and they're telling us about it. And then the guy turns to me and says, "And Marques, you have to try "the new vibration motor on this phone." And it's such a specific thing, but sure enough, I try it and it's so much better.

And for me , that's a big part of what reviews are. That honest feedback became real action for the company to improve, so the people who bought the first one knew what they were getting into, and the people who bought it knew what they were getting into, and the people who bought it first knew what they were getting into, and the people who bought it knew what they were getting into. They bought the second one. The second one really benefited from that. So that's number one, honesty is obviously very important. But the second thing is that these reviews are also definitely for the people who watch them and consume them.

You've been in this situation when you're about to buy something and you just want to double check it, so you go on YouTube, search for it, watch a couple of videos about the product, just to make sure you're not missing anything, and then you decide moment or later that day, like, okay, yeah, I'll definitely buy it. We've all been there. That's the reason, that's exactly how this YouTube channel started. My first tech video was a laptop review, but specifically, I bought the laptop with my allowance money in high school and found a Windows Media Center remote in the PCI slot that wasn't in any of the other reviews.

So the first thing I decided to do was talk about it in a video so that anyone who bought the laptop after me would know. So you're thinking about buying something, you look at a couple of reviews, you learn everything you need to know, boom, success. But this is where it gets a little interesting. I have an extra dimension on my hands with these videos, because I know that there is no way that every person who sees a review of each product is one of those people who were considering purchasing it. In fact, I get that comment in person all the time. "I watch the reviews even thinking, 'I'm not going to buy any of this.' So I know that a lot of people, in fact, most people who watch these videos, are really just here to see an interesting, informative and interesting movie. good.

The video in general is entertaining. I think the way I satisfy those things is much more subjective. Everyone has a different target demographic, but that's a little bit new. I think if we go back to the original question, can a video kill a company? I'll use the examples of Humane and Fisker. The Fisker Ocean was a terrible car. I've reviewed about 40, 50 different cars over the years, I've made videos. about a lot of them. This is the first one where I really couldn't wait to finish driving it, like it had tons of problems, bugs and missing features, safety issues like it was just bad, right?

I give people what I think is a fair review that also serves as a warning not to buy this bad car. Hopefully it will be entertaining and informative for most of the people who weren't thinking about buying the car, but also be as honest as possible with the people who are. And maybe a week or two later, the company's stock price is falling to an all-time low and it looks like they're about to file for bankruptcy. Cue the internet going crazy, and I guess I get it. Obviously it's a good headline. Like, oh, this review came out and killed this company.

This revision perhaps ruined all of Fisker. Like there's a whole Morning Brew thread about how Fisker handled this video so badly that now they're going to go bankrupt over it. Plus, there were entire stock investing topic channels saying this was like a paid hype attack on Fisker's stock price. Like he went pretty crazy. But did one review take down the entire company? I'd say step back a bit. I really... I think it's important to step back a little, actually. First of all, I wasn't the only one who checked the car, not even close. And yes, the stock price fell after my video, but the stock was also in free fall for many, many months before my video.

And if you zoom out on YouTube or the car review space in general, I was far from the only person saying these things about the car all these months. Many other reviewers had had a lot of problems, including things I didn't have with this. In fact, I think that might be the easiest way to tell if a review is honest or not. Basically, we are all reviewing the same product. We all have the same things, so we will all find many things the same. In the end we will all have the same advantages and disadvantages. If there are problems, they may eventually arise.

So yes, they will probably agree with each other. Lots of honest reviews. They will all say many of the same things. Oh, and also, in the US, the price of stocks, there's this thing where, if they're stocks, what are they? If it is below a dollar for many days in a row, they will receive a warning that they may be delisted and will have six months for the stock price to rise above a dollar again. And Fisker had just gotten that notice, around the same time I did, I think right before my video came out, actually.

And if you're an investor, you're seeing that, that's the kind of thing that really drives down stock prices, if you ask me. And if you ask me personally, I literally don't care what the stock price is of any company or any product I review. I just don't care. (laughing) And if I'm talking about a product, that will never have anything to do with what I say about the product, and I hope that's not true about other people either. And I shouldn't even have to say this. I do not invest in any of the companies I cover.

It's just a matter of trying to make an informative, educational and honest video review. That is my goal. My only goal is to do that. And I have no duty to any of the companies whose products I cover. It's only for people who watch the videos. So now, okay, let's fast forward to, you know, the Humane AI Pin recently came out. Many things the same, right? Like this pin is missing so many promises that, you know, the things it does, it doesn't really do very well. Battery life is bad, it overheats. The laser projector is a bad thing.

As if the list goes on and on. I've tried to be as fair and informative as possible, but I'm also not going to sugarcoat or leave anything out to protect the $700 device from any company with a monthly subscription. Not in that. But still, there are some threads that explode saying that what I did to this poor company is very bad. And you know, maybe you could argue that since this is the biggest channel that covered it, maybe there's some additional impact there. But again, I would say let's zoom out. Just walk away again. In fact, I wasn't the first to cover the Humane Pin, but I'm also far from the only one to talk about it.

And even a little bit within baseball, when a product comes out that's that notable or that bad, which isn't very often, a lot of critics find it very... It's stressful. You want to make sure you do everything right. A lot of us are literally exchanging notes and we like to try to figure it out, like when mine died in two hours and it was overheating on my chest doing nothing, I thought it was like a problem with mine, and I was texting a couple of other people, and indeed, the same thing is happening to them. That's why we all try to be as thorough as possible and make sure the reviews are truthful.

And that's how you get a lot of truthful reviews. Now you could argue, and I think the Twitter guy did, that the packaging was too clickbaity. And I totally understand it. But I also keep our title and thumbnail, and especially the end of the title. But keep in mind the dimension that most of the people who see this in their feed, in their subscription box, have never heard of the Humane AI Pin. And this will be the first time they hear about it and hopefully they will click on it and then they will receive a thoughtful, well thought out, balanced, honest, entertaining and informative video that turns out to be a review.

Look, I've reviewed a lot of bad products in my time. You may remember some of them. You may remember the Dyson headphones, the Red Hydrogen One, the Pixel Slate or the HTCU Ultra. The list goes on. But one thing has definitely been clear and consistent throughout all of this, and that is that every time the company goes under, you don't get those bad reviews without the product being bad to begin with, obviously. I have enormous respect and appreciation for people and groups of people who are actually creating new things, like building products. That's the hard part, at the end of the day.

And we get a lot of new and exciting things that could change the world, and that's really exciting. But technically my reviews aren't for them. All any honest review really does is simply accelerate what was already happening. Think of it that way. Well, thanks for watching. See you at the next one. Peace. (happy and relaxed music)